Supreme Court gets five new judges, its total strength now stands at 28

Five Supreme Court Judges took oath on February 17, after their induction, now the total number of judges in the Supreme Court are 28 which is 3 less than the maximum number. The apex court can have as many as 31 judges.

Supreme Court judges who took oath are: Justice Sanjay Kishnan Kaul, Justice Mohan Shantanagoudar, Justice S A Nazeer, Justice Navin Sinha and Justice Deepak Gupta. In January this year the name of these judges were suggested by the Supreme Court collegium. The judges were appointed by the apex court on February 15.

At the time of their elevation as judges of the apex court, Justice Kaul was the Chief Justice of Madras High Court; Justice Sinha was the Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court; Justice Shantanagouder was the Chief Justice of Kerala High Court; Justice Gupta was the Chief Justice of Chhattisgarh High Court and Justice Nazeer was a judge in the Karnataka High Court.

Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul will sit in the Chief Justice’s Court, Justice Mohan Shantanagoudar will sit in Court number 2, Justice S A Nazeer will sit in Court number 3, Justice Navin Sinha will sit in Court number 4, Justice Deepak Gupta will sit in Court number 5

As per the constitution, President of India appoints judges after discussing it with the Chief Justice of India and other senior judges.